Amazon River #1: Introduction and the Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon River and tropical rainforest has one of the highest levels of biodiversity on the planet. It produces almost 20% of the world's oxygen. Almost 16% of the world's river water flows through the Amazon delta. The Amazon Rainforest, though not an estuary, is extremely relevant to the Amazon River biome and therefore we will go into the rainforest in detail here.

The Amazon rainforest consists of four community layers. The emergent layer is the tallest layer, where trees can be as tall as 200 feet, and rise well above the canopy. Here they are exposed. They take advantage of the wind by developing winged seeds that are blown to other parts of the forest. Trunks can be up to 16 feet around and braced by massive buttress roots.

The main layer of the rainforest is the canopy. Most canopy trees have smooth, oval leaves that come to a point, known as a "drip tip". This allows water to flow off the leaf quickly and prevents the growth of fungi, mosses, and lichens. The canopy's leaves are very dense and filter out about 80% of the sunlight. Many flowers and fruits grow in this layer.

The understory only gets about two to five percent of the available sunlight. The plants find unique ways to adapt to this lack of light.. Their solar-collecting leaves grow large, and are dark green in color. They don't often grow more than 12 feet in height. Because there is very little air movement, they rely on insects and animals to pollinate their flowers. Some grow large flowers and fruits low on their trunks to allow larger, non-climbing animals to eat and disperse their fruit. The largest concentrations of insects inhabit this layer.

The forest floor is the lowest layer and almost no plants grow here. Only about 2% of the sunlight filters through. The floor is littered with decomposing vegetation and organisms that are broken down into usable nutrients. Many nutrients are locked into this biomass. Tree roots stay close to the surface to access these nutrients. Large animals forage for roots and tubers, while insects like millipedes, scorpions, and earthworms use the litter as a source of food.

Today, almost 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed by deforestation. Quite surprising, considering almost 40% of all medicines used today in the United States came at one time from a rainforest. The Amazon rainforest alone has provided over 230 medicines, natural cures, and remedies.

The destruction of the Amazon rainforest is a particularly serious issue when you consider the damage to the surrounding biomes, particularly the Amazon river biome. The two biomes are inexorably linked.

  1° 1'12.52"S
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